Interview with Coach Joe - Part 2

Coach Joe talks about using anger appropriately, developing key communication skills, structuring session topics so players actually learn, and a whole lot more.

Continuing from the first part of my interview with Coach Joe, we’ll begin by talking about the role of anger in coaching…

You mentioned that anger can be a positive thing. I’ve come to think that anger is okay to use if players are neglecting to do something that’s completely within their control, as opposed to when they’re just struggling to do something. Does that seem right? I’m open to being wrong on this too.

Well you have to be. Anyone who wants to be a healthy, impactful coach has to be open to being wrong all the time. That’s how we learn, otherwise we decompose. I’m sure you’ve worked with coaches who believe they’re always right. I say that anyone you talk to like that, RUN! Get out of there.

But there’s anger and there’s passion, and intent is the most important piece. If you’ve already tried a number of other things, and you want them to know that “This is important and I don’t know what else to do with you,” then I think that’s okay. You’re helping them understand that if they want to have the experience they say they do, then this is important. So anger is really about intention. If you’re clear on your intention, and you feel at peace about it, then there’s no problem.

Now if your anger is directed at somebody and not a behavior, that’s a different ballgame. I found there were times when I was frustrated because I wasn’t able to impact my team, and that frustration built up and built up and then I exploded. And what I learned is that you have to take care of things as they come up.

We may say to ourselves “Ah, Jim didn’t bring his shin guards today. I’m not going to say anything,” but you’re logging it in your mind. We’ve already set the standard, he knows to bring his shin guards, and yet he’s not doing it. And the next thing you know, somebody else isn’t bringing their shin guards. That’s when it ends up coming out as real frustration. You see the result of all these little things that haven’t been done and you explode on them.

So you need to address it right then and there. “Hey Jimmy, why didn’t you bring your shin guards? Do you have them with you? Okay, why didn’t you bring them?” That sets the standard for them. Because if we say there’s a standard but we don’t act on the standard, then there’s no standard. So the one thing I learned is take care of it when it’s in front of you.

Is that something you can train? The ability to have those conversations, especially when they’re difficult?

Absolutely. I had to train myself and it came down to my beliefs. What am I believing in that moment that’s stopping me from having that conversation? If I think “Oh, I believe I’m going to hurt that kid’s feelings because I called him out on that thing.” then I let myself off the hook from having that conversation because I’m putting it on them.

I tell myself “Oh, they’re going to feel bad,” but actually it’s the opposite. I’m hurting them by not telling them, because I’m sending the message that we don’t really have standards. I say something and it doesn’t mean anything. I hurt them because later I’m going to explode on them, which has happened several times. I’m not even giving them the respect that if I hold them accountable that they’ll learn.

Again, it comes down to your intention and your language. You can say “Where the fuck are your shin guards?” Or you can say “Hey, I noticed you don’t have your shin guards. What happened?... Okay, so just a reminder. If you show up next time with no shin guards I can’t have you practice.” Done. It’s easy.

So then how did you train yourself to do that?

Well I would make a note of what I wanted to focus on that day and put it at the top of my session paper. So it might be something like “When this happens, this is how I want to respond.” And when the kids are on water break, I would check it. It was my way of keeping it fresh in my mind, and it only took me a few times to do that.

It’s like what you say with kids. “We’re going to do this whole training session, but here’s the one or two things I want you to get from it.” I did that with myself. I said to myself “You’re going to run this training session today and here’s the one or two things I want to do better. Here’s the one or two things I want to walk away from the session feeling.” I would do the same thing to myself that we ask kids to do.

I used to think that coaching meant balancing these two extremes of being very nice and very mean and that–

I would challenge you on something though. Get rid of the words nice and mean. Those two words don’t belong in your vocabulary.

Okay. So how would you generalize those two extremes?

Healthy and unhealthy. Is this healthy or not healthy? Does this have the impact I intend to or not? I would get a little more specific. I think words like good and bad keep you in a place that’s not healthy. I think you have to be more specific. What qualifies as mean? What qualifies as nice? You thought you might be being nice when you didn’t say something about the shin guards, but actually that was mean. I would encourage you not to use those words to define your own actions or define actions of other coaches or people.

That’s a good paradigm. How do you choose what to work on with your teams?

I would look at my team and ask “What’s the low hanging fruit?” and we’d tackle that first. I would focus on one or two concepts until we moved the needle to a place where it was no longer killing our game.

And I would always coach the same basic topic for 4 to 6 sessions in a row. They wouldn’t always be the exact same session. They would build on each other and we’d progress. But if you don’t repeat a session’s topic, at least three times but usually 4 to 6 times, you will not see it show up. If you can do something 4 to 6 times and have at least 2 games in that time period, you will see your team improve.

A lot of coaches aren’t willing to stick to one topic until they see progress. That’s why you see teams that aren’t impactful and you see coaches yelling on the sideline. They just think “Hey, we worked on that this week!” But in reality they had two training sessions, and they haven’t even played a game yet, but they expect it to show up on the weekend. Players don’t learn that way.

I plan out my entire season in advance in terms of what I’m going to teach. Do you use a player development curriculum or plan things out that far?

I think you have to assess your curriculum, assess where your players are, assess what the important building blocks are at that age, and then you need to create a periodic plan for your whole season. But you have to be open to change, because something might take more time than you expected. Even if it’s one exercise within a training session; you do it until you see some progress on it.

And sometimes players will get it right just once or twice. They can struggle and struggle for twenty minutes and then they get it right, and you reward that right away. I want my players to experience that reward of struggling and struggling and struggling and then BAM! Good job! That’s it! Even if it wasn’t at the level I wanted to see, but there was positive movement. And I reward that behavior because the message is “Keep focusing, stick to it. You keep working and you will get it.” That was important to me as a coach, more important than just getting to the next thing in my session plan. When you’re willing to stay with something until they get it, those things show up on the weekend.

Now there were times I abandoned things. But it was only once I realized 1) I couldn’t figure out how to coach it better. 2) Maybe this was too much. My expectation was too high for them and it wasn’t fair for me to keep going at the topic. So I had to look at the psyche of my team and say “Alright, now am I hurting them? Because they’re starting to feel that they can’t get it at all.” So usually in those moments I took ownership of that. I said “Well guys, we’re not doing this well. I need to figure out a better way to teach this. So we’re putting this on the back burner for now until I figure out how to help us.”

When does that tipping point happen? How do you know it’s not just players struggling, but that it’s too difficult?

Because you know your team. You pay attention to them. I would teach them a concept, we’d work on it for awhile, they would get it, and then my mind would start fantasizing “Oh, if I can get them to do that then now I can get them to do this.” But in those moments, it was me taking a step too far ahead, not being realistic about where my team was at and what they are capable of.

You have to be willing to ask “Where is it breaking down? Is it the concept they’re not getting or is it because they have a technical deficiency?” You have to coach them where they’re at. I know their mind can get the movement, but if they’re not technically comfortable enough yet to actually look around and make decisions, then I’m asking them to do something they’re not ready for yet. So it’s on me. Then I would go back and work on the technical piece and sometimes that would take a long time.

Reverting back to what you said earlier, but how do you know what your players want out of their soccer experience?

You ask them. And they might not even know, but at least you get them thinking and starting to set an intention for themselves. It’s important that they know why they’re there. The challenge is to help them feel safe, for them to share what they want. They may be surrounded by players who want to go play collegiate soccer and they’re not that kid so now they don’t want to share. But it’s still important to know that you have one kid who wants to have fun and compete, because now you know how to coach them. You won’t kick them from your team, but they may think that.

You have to create the space where your team can feel vulnerable and actually be vulnerable – and feel and share things that feel risky to them. I don’t think many coaches do that well. I don’t think many coaches create a space where, and obviously this is different for different ages based on their development, your players can feel like they can say what’s on their mind, what their thinking, and what they want. And it starts with the coach being vulnerable.

One of the ways I try to create that environment is by telling them when I screw up. Saying “Hey, I got this wrong guys, and I’m sorry. And here’s what I’m going to do to make it up to you.” Or “Hey, I notice that when this happens I get angry. And that’s not on you guys, that’s on me and I’m still trying to figure that out.” Just being vulnerable in front of them is important because it sends the message that that’s what we do.

And when that first kid shows vulnerability, and there’s always one kid who’s going to do it, you support them. Somebody will share something and you’ll hear a kid say something or see them smirk and how you respond to that is important. Because it creates this idea of safety or not safety around vulnerability.

So this will happen: one kid will get upset with another kid on the soccer field during the game, and the kid who receives that is now upset, and they come to you. You need to help them understand that “When your teammate yells at you, don’t listen to the tone, listen to the message.” That’s a hard one for kids because they’re not taught that. In that moment, that kid is coming to you being vulnerable and saying “Hey, my teammate yelled at me and that hurt,” and you respond “I hear that for you, let’s talk about that.”

But it’s not about stopping the other kid from doing what they were doing. Maybe the kid who is upset and yelling has a really good point, but the delivery was horrible, so you still have to talk to him and say “Okay, so I see your passion, that’s awesome. Let’s talk about how you delivered that and why you may want to deliver that differently. Because you yelled at your teammate, why did you yell at your teammate?” “Well because we were losing and I feel like we gave up the ball.” “Awesome, I get that, I hear that for you. In that moment though, what do you think would be helpful?” Neither kid is wrong or has an issue.

And be on the shoulder for the kid who said he’s being bullied and help them. Ask him “So what are you going to do in that moment with your teammate?” Because they may have a belief about what being yelled at that means: “Oh my teammate hates me, my teammate doesn’t think I’m good enough, et cetera.” You’re trying to help that person learn how to deal with bullies. Because guess what. It’s not going to be the last teammate, the last co-worker, last school mate, last person in their life who’s going to do this. So you ask “How do you respond in that moment? How do you take care of yourself in that moment? … And by the way, thank you for telling me,” because you have to reward that vulnerability. That’s one of the challenges and one of the things you don’t see happening at many clubs. You just don’t see coaches doing that kind of work with kids.